You Have Been The One For Me
by Tarafina
Summary: "So what? This is it? This is how you say goodbye...? No explanation? You just blow into town one day and decide, what? Having a girlfriend is a hassle?"


**Title**: Goodbye My Friend, Goodbye My Lover (You Have Been The One For Me)  
**Category**: Smallville/Supernatural  
**Genre**: Angst/Romance  
**Ship**: Chloe/Dean  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Prompt**: Goodbye  
**For**: faramile (tumblr)  
**Word Count**: 1,768  
**Summary**: "So what? This is it? This is how you say goodbye...? No explanation? You just blow into town one day and decide, _what? _Having a girlfriend is a hassle?"

_**Goodbye My Friend, Goodbye My Lover (You Have Been The One For Me)**_  
-1/1-

Chloe glared through her tears, swiping angrily at her face. "You know I never thought I'd say this, Dean, but you're a _coward!_"

He didn't reply, though his jaw twitched, instead continuing to fill his duffel bag with the clothes a dresser drawer of hers used to fill, more and more of his t-shirts and jeans collecting over the years. He moved on to the stereo, careful not to look at her though he could see her out of the corner of his eye, leaning in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest. He grabbed up his CD's - Zeppelin, Blue Oyster Cult, ACDC, all 'mullet rock' as she and Sammy liked to call it - and dropped them inside of the open bag on the bed. He was trying to focus, to just get it all and get out before he let it get to him.

But he paused when he reached a picture of them, laughing, sitting at the table in Bobby's kitchen. He had a beer in hand, balanced on his knee, her fingers curled affectionately around his other forearm. She was smiling, mid-laugh at something Sam, out of sight, was saying, but her warm eyes were on Dean. Her cheeks were flushed, her blonde hair falling in waves to her shoulders. God, she was beautiful.

He glanced at her, but her eyes were on the floor, her brow knit. He grabbed the picture along with another CD and tucked them in his bag, careful not to let her see.

When he ran out of things to grab, leaving the stones carved with protection symbols on her dresser next to the silver bowl she kept her earrings and the necklace he bought for their anniversary last year, he finally walked back to the bed and hauled the bag up and over his shoulder, the weight of it heavy against his hip.

He stared down for a second at the bedspread, the one she'd dragged him through two different stores to find.

["You've been sleeping on those scratchy motel sheets, Dean. When you come home, I want it to be in a bed so soft you never want to leave…" she told him, smirking suggestively.

He laughed. "Sweetheart, just knowing _you're_ in the bed makes me homesick."]

Curling his hand into a fist, he swallowed back the burning in his throat and closed his eyes against the sting. Scrubbing a hand down his mouth, he turned, looking just to the left of her eyes, not meeting them.

She blocked the door way, her hands on either side. "So what? This is it? This is how you say goodbye?" She stared up at him searchingly. "No explanation? You just blow into town one day and decide, _what? _Having a girlfriend is a hassle?"

He clenched his teeth. "Yeah," he rasped, affecting a nonchalant expression. "That's what I do."

He left out the part where demon's laughed her name like a victory when he ganked them. Where monsters suggested he had a weakness and were excited to find it. He left out the part where happiness never played into his life for long and she was one name he could keep from being added to the long list of victims he left in his wake.

He offered her a tilted smile, humorless. "Not really a long haul kinda guy." He arched an eyebrow. "You knew that…"

"Right…" She dropped an arm but didn't move. "I guess I got a little confused when you spent three years telling me you loved me and now you're trying to write me off like I was just some clingy booty call you suddenly got tired of."

He could hear the hitch in her voice and he wanted to correct her, 'cause hell, Chloe Sullivan was anything _but _a booty call. She hadn't been since the day he met her and she called him on his monster hunting shit without so much as blinking an eye. But doing that meant explaining why he was leaving. And really, it was Chloe, she was the ultimate snoop, she'd figure it out eventually but by then he was hoping to be as far off the map as he could get from her quick little hacker's fingers.

_It's for her own good_ - a motto of his, repeated in his head.

["Why don't you let _me_ decide who my bedfellows are! Last I checked I was fully equipped to come to my own conclusions. Given, most of my ex's weren't monster-hunters… at least not in the literal sense."

"Who even _says _bedfellows anymore?"

Her lips pursed. "Your topic-changing skills are a little rusty, Dean."

He shifted his feet, frowning. "…_Your _topic changing skills are rusty."

She laughed. "Can we just agree that I'm a fully grown adult who can decide if she wants to date a hunter with his own deceptively compact baggage carrier of issues?"

"Dating's a little hard when I'm constantly on the run and moving from state to state to stalk the things that go bump in the night…" he argued.

She shrugged. "Dating's a little hard when I'm moonlighting as a babysitter to a band of superheroes, but I'm still willing to try."

His eyes darted away before he finally sighed. "Fine. But if it ever gets to be too much, I get to say 'I told you so.'"

Her lips twitched. "Since you probably rarely ever get to say that with Sam around, all the power to you."

He frowned, not sure if he should be happy or not.

Laughing, Chloe wrapped her arms around his neck. "I think this is a good time for celebratory relationship status sex."

His head tipped as he nodded. "That sounds fun."

"Even better?" She wiggled her eyebrows at him. "Somebody picked up celebratory after-sex pie!"

"You are my soul mate," he told her, chuckling as he bent to kiss her.]

"I'd apologize, but I'm pretty sure your right hook is still gonna hurt," he muttered, gripping the handle of his bag.

Her lips trembled as she opened her mouth to answer but no words left her, just a hitched cry.

His hand smoothed over her hip and squeezed. He licked his lips before he pressed a kiss against her temple and closed his eyes. He wanted to tell her she'd appreciate it later. She'd be better off without him. She'd move on, she'd hate him, she'd find some average joe with a nine-to-fiver that could give her everything she deserved. But the words, even if they were true, just wouldn't come out.

So he breathed in the familiar scent of her hair and tried not to cringe when he felt one of her tears hit his cheek. And then he pushed past her, muttering, "I'm sorry," under his breath, helpless to it, before he stalked toward the door, letting it slam behind him, trying to drown out the sound of her breaking down.

He threw his bag into the back of the Impala and swiped quickly at his face before he climbed into the driver's seat, his shaking hands fisting the steering wheel.

Sam was staring out the window, his arms crossed over his chest, stone-faced.

And he didn't have to say anything, Dean could hear Sammy's voice in his head, telling him it was a mistake, that he was an idiot. He silently agreed, but he turned the ignition anyway and pulled out onto the road.

It didn't matter that he bought an engagement ring three months ago with his combined poker and pool shark winnings, burning a hole in the inside pocket of his leather jacket. What mattered was that he had too many enemies and he was only going to keep making them. His eyes fell on the rear-view mirror and he stared at her apartment building getting smaller and smaller until it was gone completely.

["Did it hurt?"

"I swear to God, Dean, if you throw out a cheesy line right now…" Chloe groaned, rolling her eyes.

"Shut up…" he muttered. He brushed her hair off her shoulder and peeled back the bandage, examining the knife wound that'd been stitched up recently. "You see what it was?"

"Black eyes, knife, might've tossed your name out there in between his righteous ramblings…" She shrugged, wincing when her stitches pulled. "Can I just reiterate the part where I kicked demon ass?"

He rolled his eyes, but rubbed his hand down her arm soothingly. "Yeah…" His brows furrowed as he focused again on the jagged flesh before he covered it, smoothing out the tape from the bandage. He scrubbed his chin against the nape of her neck before pressing a kiss at the crook and breathed her in, feeling the panic that had been running through him since he'd gotten the call that she'd been attacked ebb only slightly. He slid an arm around her waist and pulled her back against his chest. "For the record, that's a solid line…"

She laughed. "Really? You know real angels, most of which were, in Cas's words, _asshats,_ and you want to suggest I fell from heaven?"

He grinned. "If the halo fits, sweetheart!"

She scoffed. "You are _so _sleeping on the couch."

He grinned, nuzzling her cheek. "No, I'm not. You love me."

"Fine, but I'm hogging the blankets."

His brows furrowed. "How's that new?"

She slapped his shoulder before turning and forcing him to fall back on the bed. "Thin line, Winchester."

He licked his lips and stared up at her, perched in his lap. Crossing his arms behind his head, he dropped his eyes and told her sincerely, "I'm glad you're okay."

"What's one more scar?" she dismissed, leaning down until she was just a few inches from his mouth. "Promise me this isn't going to be a thing with you…" She stared at him searchingly. "I get hurt, I live, rinse and repeat." She shook her head. "This is my life, it always has been. Again, I point out the superhero history." She raised an eyebrow. "This is not new, okay?"

He ground his teeth but eventually let his eyes meet hers and offered a crooked smile. "Not a thing. Got it."

"Good." She kissed him, dragging her tongue against his bottom lip and biting lightly until he returned it, burying his fingers in her hair and keeping her close. "Yay for Chloe, she kicked demon butt, sex?" she suggested in between slanting kisses.

He grinned. "I brought glad-you-survived pie!"

She laughed, shaking her head. "If it's cherry, you're my soul mate," she told him dramatically on a sigh.

It was cherry.]


End file.
